I thought Gangs of New York was set in the 1840's?

So Notch (or anyone else), what do you think was the larger significance of the riots (if any)?  Did it have a social or political impact on the progress of the war itself?Scout, I'm pretty sure the movie took place in the 1860s, unless I'm confusing it with some other movie in which the riots are depicted. 

The movie did take place during the 1860's... Social impact yes indeed. Think about it. You have immigrants, living not much better than the slaves lived, you are being granted citizenship solely on the premise that you will then go fight for your new country; your poor status requires that you go fight since you can?t come up with the $300 commutation fee.Most of these immigrants were fed up with fighting in their homelands; which is why many of them came to this country in the first place, and now they are being forced to fight again, and by this time, for a group of people that they had no desire to fight for. I think on top of their hardships, the bitter pill that slaves would take away their already meager existence AND they had to go fight and die for this to happen. And they couldn't buy their way out like others could. Who can blame their actions?Politically I think it was less impacting. The states? leaving the Union was a far bigger impact on the entire political structure of the time. You had Mayor Fernando Wood supporting secession and Governor Horatio Seymour running on an anti-war platform. I think this was just a Copperhead train of thought and people dismissed it as crazy. But again, socially I think it was very significant. The number of killed and injured varies from low to very high, but up to that time it was the most deadly riot in America. I also think it is a prime example of the misconception that northerners were fighting for to free the slaves. They weren't, and many in the north believed that freeing the slaves was a not only a bad idea because they were considered intellectually inferior but because, as the draft riots proved, the slaves represented competition for the low income working class.So socially it was very significant and IMHO is a perfect place for people today, who don't really understand the Civil War or slavery, to start to get a real picture of the period outside of the regurgitated, politically correct fluff that has been and still is taught.

Sorry, I thought the movie was set in the forties and about reactions to the flood of Irish Immigrants fleeing the Potato Famines.  I admit I have not seen the movie and probably won't just because it has Leonardo DiCaprio in it.As to the Draft Riots, they should probably be covered better but will not be because any talk that slavery was not the central issue for the North is contrary to the current narrative taught in schools.  Many people do not want to admit that for most Northerners the war was much more about preserving the Union than it was baout freeing the slaves.  For just about everybody except for rabid abolitionists at least.Lincoln once said that if he could preserve the Union without freeing a single slave he would do so.  Slavery was a wedge issue that Lincoln used to gain the moral high ground with the rest of the world.  Most northerners certainly were not willing to die to free the slaves.  For proof of how the northerners felt just look at the way ex-slaves were treated during and after the war.  The south did not have a monopoly on Jim Crow laws.